In Review – The Life and Adventures of Nat Love

Over the past couple of years I have reviewed quite a number of books for this blog, but this is the first time I have reviewed a book acquired as a digital download.

The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, is a remarkable tale by any measure. The full title of the book – as can be seen in the illustration on the left – includes the additional words: better known in the cattle country as Dead Wood Dick.

Nat (pron: Nate) Love (1854–1921), was an African American cowboy following the American Civil War. In The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, his 1907 autobiography, Nat reveals that he was born into slavery during the month of June, 1854 (exact date unknown), on the Tennessee plantation of Robert Love, an “…owner of many slaves”.

Following the common practise at that time, Nat was given the surname of his owner, as were his two older siblings, sister Sally and brother Jordan. Nat Love’s father was a slave foreman in the fields, and his mother managed the kitchen.

Following the Civil War, Nat’s father, Sampson, rented 20 acres of land from Robert Love, and the family began to farm their own piece of ground cultivating corn, tobacco and vegetables. Nat learnt the basics of reading and writing from his father, whose untimely death a year or so after gaining his freedom, forced Nat to assume the role of head of the family, despite the fact that he was younger than his two siblings.

The family struggled on for several more years, until one day Nat’s luck finally changed for the better when – with a fifty-cent stake – he won a horse in a raffle. The former owner immediately bought the nag back from Nat for $50, and proceeded to raffle the horse for a second time. Incredibly, Nat, who had bought a ticket in this new raffle again won the horse. Once more the owner offered to buy the horse back for another $50, to which Nat agreed. Now armed with one hundred dollars in cash, Nat headed home and giving half to his mother, he used the other half to “…go out in the world and try and better my condition.”

Although he was only 15 or 16 years of age at this time, Nat went west to Dodge City, Kansas, and found work as a cowboy. Because of his excellent horse riding skills, he was soon given the nickname, "Red River Dick."

Nat Love goes on to recount his many adventures involving cattle rustlers, wild storms, marauding Indians, buffalo and cattle stampedes, gun fights, and long months on the trail, and life in general as a cowboy. His many years of experience made him an expert marksman and horse rider, and when, at the age of 22, he entered a rodeo in Deadwood, South Dakota on the 4th of July in 1876 – winning the rope, throw, tie, bridle, saddle and bronco riding contests – he was given the nickname "Deadwood Dick."

In 1890, Nat Love – who had recently married – gave up the life of the cowboy to begin his second career as a Pullman porter on the vast new rail networks that were then criss-crossing their way over the old cattle trails. For 15 years he rode the ‘iron horse’ the length and breadth of the continental United States, and his book contains a paeon to America that is so beautifully written that I will quote it in full in a forthcoming entry.

I was particularly taken with this passage too: “At the present time there are in the United States upwards of two hundred and sixty thousand miles of railroad open and in operation, not to mention several thousand miles now building and projected … while in 1851 there were only…9000 miles.” Later, he adds, “They carry somewhat more than 800,000,000 passengers every twelve months.”

The heyday of rail travel in the United States has of course, long since come and gone. The Wikipedia entry for Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation), states that today Amtrak “…operates passenger service on 21,000 miles of track,” compared to the 260,000+ miles and growing in Nat Love’s day. Further, Wikipedia states, “In fiscal year 2008, Amtrak served 28.7 million passengers,” as compared with the 800 million annual passengers when Nat Love worked across the rail network.

Nat Love died in Los Angeles at age 67 in 1921. He lived an extraordinary life that took him from slavery, to the heyday of the American West, to the rise of the railways, and many places in between. He personally knew William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody, Frank and Jesse James, Kit Carson as well as Billie The Kid – all of whom he writes about in his book. If ever there was a story crying out to be turned into a great Hollywood movie, the story of Nat Love is it, and why it has yet to be done is beyond me.

Maybe it is because truth really is stranger than fiction.

I only have one major reservation about the autobiography: Nat Love refers to Native Americans and Mexican nationals in quite derogatory terms in his book, where he refers to Mexicans as ‘greasers,’ and when he repeats the widespread cry of the day that ‘the only good Indian is a dead one,’ etc. In his defence, one could argue that he was simply reflecting commonly held sentiments of his era, but to my mind it does detract from the full esteem he surely deserves.

Also, one obvious omission came to mind as I finished this remarkable story: once Nat gives his mother half his winnings from the horse raffles, and heads off to better his “condition,” he never mentions his mother or two siblings again, and I was left wondering if he ever saw them or kept in contact with them over the remainder of his life.

The Life and Adventures of Nat Love is available as a free digital download from that amazing repository of free public domain books, Gutenberg.Org, where along with Nat Love’s autobiography you will find more than thirty thousand other titles that can be downloaded gratis to your iPhone, iPad, Kindle, PC, Mac or any number of other electronic devices.

Highly recommended.

More information

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EBook: The Life and Adventures of Nat Love…

In Review: Sean and David’s Long Drive

Sean Condon is a master of the quick quip, an eye-catching headline, and a connoisseur of the finest pomades*. As a young copywriter in an unnamed Australian advertising agency, Sean was bored, disillusioned, and desperate for a change in his environment, and his life. His answer? To undertake a long drive around Australia with his mate David O’Brien.

The result of their 6-7 week odyssey is what constitutes Sean + David’s Long Drive (Lonely Planet Publications, 1996. Republished 2009). In fact, the book is essentially a reproduction of the daily diary Sean kept throughout the trip.

To be precise, their trip didn’t take them around Australia per se, but through the centre of the continent. Roughly, the route they followed went thus (see map): [E]Melbourne to Adelaide (via the Great Ocean Road), then Alice Springs, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Tennant Creek, [B]Darwin, Tennant Creek (again), Mount Isa, Townsville, [C]Cairns, Townsville (again), then down the east coast of Australia taking in Surfers Paradise, Brisbane, [D]Sydney, Canberra, and finally back to [E]Melbourne. Whew! If that seems like a long way – it is. Over eleven thousand kilometres in fact.

Incredibly, Sean Condon didn’t drive even one kilometre of that total distance. It seems he doesn’t drive (or at least he didn’t at the time he and David undertook their journey), which meant that David O’Brien had to drive every one of those eleven thousand plus kilometres.

Sean Condon is a graduate of the Bill Bryson School of Travel Writing. (Actually, I just made that up. To my knowledge there is no actual BBSoTW, but if there was, Sean would surely have been a graduate of the Class of ‘96).

Sean, like Bryson has an acerbic wit, a talent for focusing on the odd, the banal, and the ridiculous as they travel across continents, and a talent too for writing about them with humor and occasionally something bordering on compassion and empathy.

Condon, I guess would be labelled a Generation X-er (he was born in 1965), and presumably he reflects the thinking – and lives the lifestyle – of that generation of thirty-something’s that are lumped within that catch-all label. Sean and David spend much of their down time (when not actually on the road), boozing, smoking, eating junk food, womanising, and boozing some more.

Come to think of it, they spend much of their driving time indulging in the same practices as well.

The book is not a travelogue in the usual sense of the word. If you are looking for specific information and advice about say, Alice Springs, or Darwin, or Charters Towers, you are only going to get the briefest glimpse from Sean + David’s Long Drive. A peak behind the curtain, so to speak. Partly this is because Australia – especially the interior, or ‘outback’ – is so vast, flat, and featureless, that the landscape seemingly never changes for hundreds of miles.

To break the monotony and boredom of the trip, Sean and David engage in small talk – lots of it – that covers their favourite music and bands, women they have known, and television shows that Gen X-ers grew up on. Shows such as the Brady Bunch, Scooby Doo, and other such fare.

I don’t think I learned anything new about Australia that I didn’t already know, and I learned a lot about Sean that I didn’t need to know. While the book is entertaining enough and easily digested, Sean’s humor and jaundiced view of the journey began to grate on me after a while, and it was all I could do to finish the book. Having said that, I must admit that Bill Bryson’s writing can have the same effect on me, so maybe the problem lies with me, and not with Sean Condon – or Bill Bryson.

I suppose that’s a roundabout way of saying, if you like Bill Bryson’s writing, you will like Sean + David’s Long Drive as well.

Details:
Paperback: 296 pages
Publisher: Lonely Planet; 2nd edition (February 1, 2009)
ISBN-10: 9781741795226
ISBN-13: 978-1741795226
ASIN: 1741795222

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*Pomade
— n
1. a perfumed oil or ointment put on the hair, as to make it smooth and shiny
[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Pomade]

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Purchase Sean + David's Long Drive from Amazon.Com as well as other books written by Sean Condon via the links below.

In Review: New York by Lily Brett

The book jacket describes Lily Brett’s 2001 book, New York as a “…wry collection of pieces,” about New York City; a city that has “…entertained, inspired and perplexed her for the decade she has lived there in a SoHo loft apartment.”

The daughter of Jewish holocaust survivors, Lily Brett was born in Germany and moved to Australia (with her parents) in 1948. In 1989 she moved to New York City with her artist husband, David Rankin. At just 156 pages, this collection of fifty-two essays offers short vignettes about New York City, that seek to illuminate and throw light onto life, in arguably, America’s most exciting metropolis.

It occurred to me that New York would make a fine companion piece to the highly successful television series, Sex And The City, since so many of Lily’s essays deal with relationships, fashion, women, personal appearance, marriage, plastic surgery, ageing, celebrity hairdressers, and yes – sex.

What I enjoyed most about Lily Brett’s New York was trying to see how much I could identify about the city based on my own two visits there in 2008, and again in 2010.

Her piece on Chinatown, called appropriately enough, Chinatown, captures the hustle and bustle of that New York neighborhood, and the shock and discomfort many people experience when first encountering the live fish, frogs and crustaceans waiting to be turned into meals of endless variety on nightly dinner tables.

In several essays she seems to lament the demise of the old New York. A city that was more reminiscent of Martin Scorcese’s Mean Streets, or even worse, Taxi Driver. A city bathed in low light, high crime, graffiti and poverty. Of course, all these aspects of New York are still there, though thankfully nowhere near as prevalent as they once were. Ultimately, Brett’s various neuroses leave her grateful that the bad old days alluded to above are for the most part gone, and I can only agree with her regarding this.

According to Lily Brett’s website, the 52 essays that make up New York were originally commissioned as weekly columns for the German newspaper Die Zeit. This accounts for their short length of just over two pages each. As a result, New York, can be read in a matter of hours, and while it doesn’t offer any major insights into the America psyche, it certainly offers many insights into Brett’s mind. So much so, that I couldn’t help thinking, as I read New York, that it would be fascinating to eavesdrop on a conversation between her and Woody Allen. One gets the feeling they might have a lot in common, with both apparently revelling in their neuroses, Jewish heritage, hypochondria, and their love/hate relationship with the Big Apple.

New York is an entertaining, albeit short and easily read collection of New York City observations, and is worth seeking out if you are planning a trip to this amazing city.

Unfortunately, New York appears to be out of print in its English language edition, although there are second-hand copies available on Amazon. Be aware though that there is also a German language edition currently available via Amazon. New York is available as a download for Amazon’s Kindle eReader, and may eventually be available in other eReader formats as well. Your best bet might be to visit your local second-hand book shop and see if they have a copy on their shelves.

Details:
Paperback: 156 pages
Publisher: Picador (January 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0330362453
ISBN-13: 978-0330362450

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Lily Brett has written numerous other books and a range of these presented below. As always, you can purchase these directly via Amazon.Com.

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In Review: A Walk Across America

At the ripe old age of 22, and already married at just 19 years of age, Peter Jenkins was lost. Metaphorically, at least.

Having grown up in a nice middle class family, in a nice middle class neighbourhood, and having been groomed and prepared for entry into a nice middle class college, his life seemed to be going in exactly the same direction as that of thousands of other young Americans.

As 1969’s ‘summer of love’ slowly but surely turned into the long winter of disillusionment that was the early 1970s, Peter did what many others have done before – he went looking for America.

There is a history of searching in America. Searching for new lands. Searching for wealth. Searching for minerals and resources – in particular, gold and oil. And then there is the search for Self. The search for meaning.

These themes have been at the heart of many great songs, novels and films, and no doubt will continue to be. Paul Simon’s song America, is one example. John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, and Jack Kerouac’s classic novel of the beat generation, On The Road are two novels that examine this thesis. Numerous movies have also explored this subject matter, in particular, Easy Rider, the 1969 classic starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, for which the tag line read: A man went looking for America – and couldn’t find it anywhere…

Ten years later, Peter Jenkins was able to write: "I started out searching for myself and my country, and found both." While Peter’s 1979 book, A Walk Across America describes that quest, his personal ‘search for meaning’ had in fact begun over five years earlier, when, on the morning of October 15, 1973, he began his walk from the small upper New York state college town of Alfred, to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he arrived 18 months later in April, 1975.

In some ways this is a frustrating book. I suspect that if it was being written today, we would learn a lot more about the background to Peter’s disillusionment with America, and the reasons for his anger and sense of alienation. Unfortunately, we learn little of the great social upheavals taking place in America during the 1960s and early 1970s: the race riots, the 1968 assassinations of Senator Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the growing protests against the war in Vietnam which resulted in the deaths of four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, and so much more.

So when Jenkins heads out on a cool autumn day towards New Orleans, his only goal appears to be to walk across the United States with the aim of deciding if he should stay and live in America, or whether he should move elsewhere.

Along the way he finds his answer.

Towards the end of the book Jenkins writes: “I had started out with a sense of bitterness about what my country appeared to be. But with every step I had learned otherwise. I had been turned on by America and its people in a thousand fantastic ways.”

His only companion for most of the journey was a huge Alaskan Malamute dog called, Cooper. Together they encounter a hermit mountain man; are run out of town in Robinsville, North Carolina, but a little further down the road they are ‘adopted’ by an African American family in Smokey Hollow, North Carolina. Due to lack of finances Jenkins had to stop and work during his long walk, and here too he encounters the ‘real’ America he is looking for. He shovels horse manure on an Alabama ranch, works for two months in a North Carolina sawmill, and spends a month or so on a hippy commune in Tennessee.

As you would expect, Peter Jenkins meets and greets (and sometimes has to run and hide from) a huge array of characters that make up 1970s America. Police officers, poor southern black families, rich southern white families, rednecks and moonshiners, Friday night boozers, and Saturday night losers, and countless strangers along the way who either threaten him, offer him food or invite him in to their homes for a night or two before continuing on his way. He even gets to meet the then Governor of Alabama, George Wallace.

But of all the experiences Peter Jenkins encounters, none are as profound as his encounters with God and religion. By his own admission, neither he or his family where regular churchgoers, but when he moves in with a poor African American family in Smokey Hollow, headed by matriarch Mary Elizabeth, his attendance at the small Mount Zion Baptist church every Sunday is non-negotiable. Here he is moved in ways he never expected. And later again, in New Orleans, his attendance at a revivalist gathering becomes life changing.

You have to admire Jenkins’ desire and determination to not just embark on a journey of this magnitude, but the fortitude and strength of character he shows – often despite great challenges – to complete it.

A Walk Across America ends with Jenkins meeting Barbara, his future wife in New Orleans.

Eventually, they would head west together, and continue the walk from Louisiana, through Texas and New Mexico, across Colorado before finally completing this monumental journey in California. Jenkins would go on to write about this part of the walk in his next book, The Walk West: A Walk Across America 2.

A Walk Across America is not a travelogue in the sense that a Bill Bryson book is. This is a journey into the self. The journey of one young man trying to find himself, and his desire to rediscover his country. During this journey, Jenkins' faith and pride in his country -- and himself -- were tested to the limit, and ultimately restored.

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Peter Jenkins has written numerous books since undertaking his first walk across America. Click these links to purchase A Walk Across America , The Walk West: A Walk Across America 2, The Road Unseen, Along the Edge of America , Close Friends, and Across China . Click on the images to purchase via Amazon.Com:

  

In Review: Zapata and the Mexican Revolution

~ Emiliano Zapata Salazar (August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919) was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South, during the Mexican Revolution. In this review, Zachary Parker examines John Womack Jr’s. book, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution.

Bringing the Fields to the Federals - Review of Zapata and the Mexican Revolution, by Zachary Parker

The prized possession of Emiliano Zapata was the rights and respect of lands that were the heritage and legacy of the families of Southern Mexico. Why a man with seemingly simple demands must find himself in short time the supreme chief of a revolutionary army, a guerrilla general or even a symbol and figurehead to a movement that would sweep across the nation is an injustice to logic. The story of Zapata's crests and ebbs traverse local politics, insurgencies, and outright warring and international martyrdom.

What becomes evident of the pages of John Womack Jr's dedicated and highly detailed telling of the travails Zapata and his rugged, unremitting rabble is that the scope of the agrarian movement exponentially distends with every snub, assault or closed door in the faces of the poor farmers of the south.

To read of the obscene scenarios of peonage, penury and uniform despotism these people met at the hands of the commercial planters, and the state and federal government at their behest, is to read of fear, shame and guilt.

The bulk of the book puts the reader into the shoes of the Zapatista regulars, the farmers in their whites and sandals. From field to federal district they march, armed first with pleas, then Mausers for their cause. With a cast and crew of citizens (whose names and backgrounds are greatly detailed, making for a substantial gift of memory to keep straight), rallying behind their chief in the struggle to retain their communal lands and livelihood, the reader finds the intrigues and politicking as engrossing as the fiery escapades and raids against the Federales.

Of interest to an observer of the popular movement – especially after Zapata has risen to the patriarchal high of supreme general of the revolutionary army – is the Sissyphusian spiral that the leader and the movement plunges. That Zapata, a man who wanted only reform in the local land policy against those who were gaining while hardship reigned in the lives of the poor farmers, had to assume the role, to bear the target of the oppressing governments was unjust. His single-minded dedication to justice and land rights made him a hero, but this same single-mindedness also exposed him to a life wrested from the very farmland he wished to save.

What John Womack, Jr. offers is more narrative than simply historical in delivery. He makes use of impressive, ample quotes, insights and documents, both official and personal in accounting the social and political struggle that Mexico was home to in the early 20th century. The atrocities committed by every successive dictatorial regime, the waves of oppressive governments and their crushing armies; all is covered in great detail and expression.

The reader may well be swept up in the flurry of events. They may though, also be caught under the weight of the details, names and political entanglements of the revolution. That Womack was able to weave through all the broken alliances, nuances and sheer amount of partisans and players of the era is a testament to his exploratory depths and knowledge of the subject.

What struck me most, and as disheartening in the endeavours of the Zapatista mythology, is that for every length the man and mission moved forward, for every triumph and coup achieved, the displaced force was inexorably replaced by a worse entity.

From the initial ousting of the dictator Diaz came a champion, Francisco Madero. However, when Madero proved to be not only an opponent of change, but an enemy of the revolution, Zapata took the struggle further.

Seeing the devastation and forced deportation of the southern farmers, labour and draft of the people of the south, Zapata then moved against Huerta. Under the banner of the constitution, Carranza brings about nothing less than a continuation of the depravity and evils of a government against the needs of its citizens. Throughout all this turmoil, Zapata never moves from his initial goals of agrarian reform. The hubris shown in the decade of turmoil by the succession of generals, presidents and political bodies is extreme and most unsettling to dissect.

"Rebels of the South, it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees" sums up, though posthumously uttered, the years of Zapata's revolution. The progress socially, economically and ethically of the common workingmen and poor farmers of Mexico is all that the man sought. Zapata was called to this in his village, took it all the way to the president (all subsequent ones) and paid the ultimate price for it.

Emiliano Zapata took up the challenges of local reform, and brought it to the district, the state, and to the federal level. He was forced by fate to become the champion of Mexico's poor and indigenous citizens. For this he has a place in the pantheon of rebel heroes and martyrs. What he really deserved though, and what he really wanted was to continue farming the traditional lands his family had been farming for generations before him.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Zachary_Parker

In Review: Route 66: An American (Bad) Dream

~ In 2002, three young Germans, Stefan Kluge, Mathias Eimann, and Gerald Menzel set off on their Great American Adventure, hoping to drive the length of Route 66. Their transportation of choice is a massive 2.3 ton, 1974, red Eldorado Cadillac convertible.

The resulting film: Route 66: An American (Bad) Dream, is a salutary lesson on what not to do on your American road trip – or any road trip for that matter. Clearly, these travellers where under prepared for their journey, since it would appear they had no insurance, no AAA cover, and no idea that the car they had paid $2,500 for was barely roadworthy.

The Caddie either breaks down constantly, runs out of fuel, or suffers a litany of other mechanical problems throughout the journey (broken gear box, flat battery, worn brakes, oil leaks, blown tyre and an exhaust pipe that needs to be replaced en route). In fact, the car breaks down before the journey even begins, which surely must have been a portent of the problems to come.

However, the three travellers are saved by their naivety; the assistance offered to them by complete strangers; the friendliness of the people they meet along the way; and the little mechanical knowledge they do share between them.

As you would expect, they meet an assortment of characters, and offer wry observations, such as this gem: “Americans live in their cars, and they eat there. For that, you need cup holders. Nowadays, new cars will be judged by the number of cup holders they have. If you watch advertisements, you will find that the number of cup holders seems to be as important as the number of cylinders or the vehicle load capacity. Modern minivans like the Chevy Venture have up to 17 cup holders. Above all, that could be the reason why our car [is] no longer been seen on the American highways. A missing cup holder! In 1974, even Cadillac wasn’t thinking about cup holders.”

Intriguingly, the credits note that the film is “Based on the book, Route 66 in einem 74er Cadillac”, (Route 66 in a ’74 Cadillac), written by Stefan Kluge and co-authored by Mathias Eimann. Stefan Kluge has also added the following brief plot summary to the film’s entry on the Internet Movie Database, where the film is given the title: Route 66: An American (Bad) Dream.

“Route 66: Ein amerikanischer Albtraum (2004) Three German provincials are searching for Hollywood. So they take the most American values they can picture: an absurdly vast car, full of fast food, bottles of oil and camera equipment on the way to California via Route 66. That they never find Hollywood is not the only surprise - on their quest for the American clichés they face unplanned incidents. A documentary drama somewhere between Jackass and Michael Moore, between gloating and satire.”

As Germany’s first Open Source film, you can download and view the film for free from the VEB Film website. You also get a good idea of how technology is being used to today. The creators of Route 66 filmed, edited and produced the film themselves. They are using the internet to ‘distribute’ the film around the world, and on top of that, they include a Creative Commons License which allows you to add to, or reedit the film in any way you choose.

As for the film itself, as already noted, is provides a good lesson in how not to organise and conduct a long road trip. Preparation is the key to a safe, successful journey, and while it is impossible to guard against every eventuality or potential problem, a little planning – as the saying goes – goes a long way.

Along the way we get to see vast stretches of open highway, interspersed with our intrepid travellers eating fast food (McDonald’s seems to be their main diet); repairing the vehicles brakes; visiting the famous Cadillac Ranch with its series of Caddie’s buried ‘nose first’ in the open prairie near Amarillo, Texas; doing the laundry; replacing a flat tyre; get brief glimpses of Washington, DC., New York City, and Las Vegas; more breakdowns; etc, etc.

As the three travellers cross the country, we learn almost nothing about the towns, cities, and country they pass through. If it wasn’t for their encounters with helpful strangers along the way – strangers who essentially save the travellers from themselves; from their own disorganisation and incompetence – we might not have even got to ‘meet’ some of the 300 million people who inhabit the United States today.

At 103 minutes the film is over long, and could easily be edited down to a workable 90 minute version without losing any flow or drama. In fact, apart from a brief encounter with a police patrol car, and watching them deal with constant mechanical problems, nothing particularly dramatic happens. The first 20 minutes of the film is spent waiting for the Cadillac to be fixed, and when the journey proper finally begins they head for New York and the ‘start’ of their road trip.

Because the three travellers presumably talked to each other in their native German, we learn about the details of the trip via a voiceover which, despite the strong German accent is quiet and unobtrusive, and never gets in the way of the unfolding journey. The commentary is filled with wry observations and explanations such as the one already quoted above, as well as others in which we learn about the ‘joys’ of cheap motel accommodations. Where “…every motel has its own individual characteristic, and while you are driving in the dusk, you are already wondering…if the indoor aerial will fall off during the NBA playoffs”; or this, “…the distance between your bed and your car won’t be more than three metres...”

Where the three are filmed talking to each other, subtitles allow us to listen in on their conversations as we ride with them inside the Cadillac.

Finally, excellent atmospheric music is provided throughout by the German electronic group, Valley Forge (note: the website is entirely in German). The group consists of Thomas Bechholds (synths, organ, piano, vocoder), with Michael Seitz (drums, percussion, synths) and Jürgen Winter (guitars).

To sum up, if you are planning your own road trip across America (or anywhere), Route 66: An American (Bad) Dream, is worth viewing for the many lessons to be gleaned from our hapless adventurers.

By the way, the ‘bad’ dream alluded to in the title, is entirely the result of the film makers own lack of care and forethought. As I’ve said throughout this review, and repeat once again, the film is a great lesson in what not to do when embarking on a long road trip, and if viewing Route 66 encourages you to put more thought and care into planning your own travels, it will have been worth the 103 minutes you invest in it.

View the Route 66 trailer…

Travel – Getting the Full Experience

~ My recent review of The Texas Cowboy Cookbook prompted a friend to ask: Why on earth is a travel blog reviewing a cookbook? And a Texas cowboy cookbook at that?

So today I thought I would explain my rationale for reviewing the cookbook (and other publications), in the hope that it will encourage readers and prospective travellers to expand their reading list and broaden their research before they hit the road.

For me, travel is not only about ancient monuments, famous landmarks, lying around on the beach getting sunburnt, or taking yet another golden sunset photograph. It is also about all those other things that go into making travel experiences truly memorable and unique.

Things like trying to gain insight into the culture and history of the countries I pass through. It’s about digging deeper into the morés and traditions of the people that make these countries what they are. And it’s about immersing myself in the travel experience, so that I can hopefully come away from my latest journeying with a deeper understanding of the world and the peoples that inhabit it.

I am a firm believer that you don’t have to actually be travelling to immerse yourself in the travel experience. The travel experience for me begins with research, with reading a wide range of books about the countries I plan to visit. With gaining a basic understanding of the language of the people so I can deepen the connection with them as I interact with them on a daily basis.

Most people, when preparing for a major journey, confine their ‘research’ to general country guides or location specific guides like the one for New York City previously reviewed on this site (Knopf MapGuide: New York), or Road Trip USA (Road Trip USA). As good as they are, these guides, by their very nature, cannot provide you with the deep background insight into a nation you get from reading good travelogues, biographies of important national figures, and the histories of the people, places, and nations you are planning to visit.

Hence my recent review of Robb Walsh’s 2007 publication, The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, Bill Bryson’s Down Under, A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins, and Bypass by Michael McGirr – to name just some of my book reviews.

Actually, I have also wanted to include reviews of feature films, documentaries, and television series on this blog as well, but I just haven’t had the time to devote to this. I believe there are many films and TV programs that help provide another level of insight into the travel experience. For instance, the brilliant documentaries of Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The War, etc), the travel adventures of Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor (The Long Way Round, and Long Way Down), and the journeys of Michael Palin (Sahara, Himalaya, and Full Circle, etc), all come to mind.

Then there are great feature films like those of the director Werner Hertzog, whose wonderful films, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, and Fitzcarraldo fuse drama, stunning cinematography and magnificent landscapes to transport you to a world that is both frightening and exhilarating at the same time. Or the more recent Tulpan, by Sergei Dvortsevoy. This film, which won the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, looks at the fast disappearing world of nomadic sheep herders in Kazakhstan, and combines comedy, drama, and documentary style film making to show us a landscape that few city dwelling westerners (or ‘easterners’ for that matter), will ever get to see.

In fact, just writing this entry has prompted me to start putting aside some time to watch these movies, and television programs and write reviews of them. So look out for these in the near future.

I hope this brief rationale for my reviewing policies also prompts you to broaden your research parameters, and gets you thinking ‘outside the box’ about ways you too can get the full experience out of your travels.

NOTE: To see a full list of all the books reviewed on The Compleat Traveller, click on the ‘In Review’ label below.

Image courtesy of Gregor Books…

In Review – The Texas Cowboy Cookbook

~ As a child growing up in the 1950s and 60s, my world was filled in part with stories and movies depicting the exciting life of the American cowboy.

From Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger, to Saturday afternoon cowboy serials at my local cinema, and television series such as Gunsmoke, Bat Masterson, and even The Cisco Kid, the American west was as much a part of my suburban Adelaide upbringing as it was for a child in New York City. And yes, I too played ‘Cowboys and Indians’ after school, and had to take my turn as one of the Indians who invariably ended up getting shot by my best friend whose turn it was to be “the fastest gun in the west”.

Which brings me to Robb Walsh’s wonderful 2007 publication, The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, and which, despite its title, is more than just a book filled with western recipes.

I think it is fair to say that I’ve learnt more about the history and the life of cowboys from this cookbook, than anything else I’ve read so far on the topic, which may seem strange when you think about it – but then I haven’t read too many histories of the American West, and anyway, this is no ordinary cookbook. Not when the cover proclaims that The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, is “A History in Recipes and Photos.” And what a history it is.

The boom years of the American West occurred after the American Civil War – from 1866 to 1886, a period of just 20 short years. Almost everything we think we know about the West: the myths and legends, the Indian wars and the cattle trails, the gunfights and the outlaws, stems from this period.

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook is divided into ten chapters, each beginning with historical information examining the chapter’s theme. For example, The Texas Cowboy Myth, examines the background to the myths surrounding the American West, and the methods used to transform what was a tough, hard, dangerous life on the American frontier into the stuff of legends.

One of the greatest myth makers was Colonel William Cody, more popularly known as “Buffalo Bill”. Cody, who was in fact an army scout and real life Indian fighter, caused a sensation whenever his ‘Wild West Shows’ toured the big cities along the Eastern seaboard, and brought some of the flavour of the west to well-healed city slickers. It was “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Shows” that apparently invented the ‘circling the wagons’ myth that became a staple scene in many early Hollywood Westerns.

In Los Vaqueros, we learn more about the influence of the Spanish on the American West. In fact, throughout the book, Robb Walsh constantly explodes another great Western myth – the one that almost universally depicts Mexicans as greasers, bandits and outlaws, and relegates their contribution to the periphery of cowboy mythology, or as mere footnotes (if that).

For me, chapter 6, Black Cowboys, was the most surprising section of the book. Again, Walsh explodes the myth that the American West and the cowboys that rode it were always tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed and white. There were plenty of Anglo cowboys of course, but as the book points out: “…Texas cattle-raisers also included Spanish vaqueros, black slaves, former slaves and free people of color, Cajuns, Creoles, and immigrants freshly arrived from Mexico, England, Ireland, and Scotland, as well as other parts of the United States.”

While the exact number of African American cowboys will never be known: “The contention has been made that as many as 40 percent of all Texas cowboys were black.” Walsh writes that this claim depends on who is doing the counting. However, Walsh also writes that “By 1860 there were 180,000 slaves in Texas, 30 percent of the state’s population.”

It should come as no surprise then, that when the Civil War ended, many of the freed slaves continued to work as cowboys throughout the South and in Texas in particular.

And so to the diet of the American Cowboy.

If you thought the typical cowboy diet consisted of not much more than beans and beef, you would of course be wrong. Again The Texas Cowboy Cookbook illustrates, in more ways than one, that the western diet was influenced by a wide range of cultures and ingredients. From “…the wild game and goats preferred by the Spanish herders of the late 1700s, to the black Southern cooking of slaves and free people of color who worked as cowboys on East Texas ranches beginning in the early 1800s.”

The end of the Civil War also saw the arrival of bulk supplies of foodstuffs into the West. Now staples such as flour, coffee and lard were easy to come by. The advent of canning also saw a wide variety of foods (especially canned fruits) become available to cooks for use in recipes along the various routes used for extended cattle drives.

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook presents over 100 “genuine” cowboy recipes, as well as a selection of newer Western recipes created by modern cooks in what Walsh (in his final chapter) refers to as “The New Cowboy Cuisine”.

Starting with a look at the different types of chiles (including Anaheim, Poblano, Jalapeño, Serrano and Pequin – and their variants), Walsh takes the reader through ways to roast, grind, and make various chili sauces and salsas for year round use. In West of The Pecos we learn how to make a sourdough starter that can be used to make a continuous supply of sourdough pancakes, biscuits, hamburger buns, and more.

Having got the seasonings and the sourdoughs out of the way, the cookbook tackles the recipes proper. Everything you expected and a whole lot more is presented to the aspiring cowboy chef.

From Chili con Carne, to Chili con Queso; from Cinnamon Chicken to Green Gumbo with Fish; from Fried Green Tomatoes to Mexican Pot Roast. There are meat recipes aplenty: chicken, venison, pork and beef spare ribs, tenderloin steaks, and patties. You get soups and stews; corn bread, okra, and fatback; desserts like buttermilk-lemon pie, peach cobbler, and butter pecan ice-cream. There are noodle, rice, tomato, and onion dishes. And there are salads, sausages and sweet potato recipes. If you can’t find something to satisfy the hunger inside, you are not looking hard enough.

To end this review I will include just one recipe - for Cowboy Coffee. I look forward to the day when I’m watching a Western in my local cinema, and see the ‘cowboys’ make coffee this way – with water, coffee and a raw egg.

Wayne Walker’s Cowboy Coffee (makes 8 cups)
Wayne Walker’s technique for settling the grounds of coffee is to drop a whole raw egg into the coffee and stir it gently. It’s actually similar to the technique used by French chefs to clarify stock. Just don’t eat the egg.

8 heaping tablespoons medium-ground 100 percent Arabica coffee
8 cups spring water
1 raw egg

METHOD: In a metal coffeepot over medium heat, add the coffee to the water. Bring just to a boil and then reduce to a simmer (or move the pot to the side of the campfire) for a few minutes, or until strong enough. Break the egg into the pot and stir gently, being careful not to break the yolk. Wait at least 5 minutes without disturbing the pot. Pour carefully.

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook is generously illustrated with period black and white photographs and drawings, and includes a useful Resource Guide for readers wanting to find out more via the Internet. There is also a good Bibliography and a comprehensive Index.

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, is worth reading for the historical information alone, but of course, if you want to try your hand at genuine old west recipes, the cookbook is the perfect place to start. So strap on your chaps, clear some space in the kitchen – or dig a fire pit in the back yard – and start cookin’. Yee-haa!

Title: The Texas Cowboy Cookbook
Author: Robb Walsh
Publisher: Broadway (April 10, 2007)
Language: English
Paperback: 272 pages
ISBN-10: 0767921496
ISBN-13: 978-0767921497

Click link to purchase The Texas Cowboy Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos or click link below to purchase book direct from Amazon.Com…



You can also purchase Robb Walsh’s The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos and Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses

Image courtesy of Amazon.Com

In Review: Bypass: The Story of a Road

~ At the age of 40, former Jesuit priest, Michael McGirr – armed with not much more than a copy of Anna Karenina, some spare clothes and a less than state-of-the-art Chinese built bicycle – set out to ride the 880 kilometres (547 miles) of the Hume Highway which links Sydney and Melbourne.

While the ride forms the backdrop to McGirr’s book Bypass: The Story of a Road, like all good travelogue’s the ride itself is really just a frame to hang the real story around, which as the title suggests, is the story of the Hume Highway.

From its humble beginnings as a rough track across the Great Dividing Range, to it’s current state as a modern dual carriageway, the Highway continues to serve as the major thoroughfare linking Australia’s two largest cities.

Bypass takes you on a wonderful journey covering the history of the Hume, and the politics that helped shape it. Along the way you meet some great – and not so great – Australian characters that have helped imprint the name of the highway into the Australian psyche. People like the 61 year old Cliff Young (great), who in 1983 won the inaugural Sydney to Melbourne foot race against competitors half his age. And men like Ivan Milat (not so great) who was convicted of the murder of seven young backpackers and hitch-hikers, all of whom he buried in the Belanglo State Forest.

Then there are the explorers Hamilton Hume (after whom the Highway was eventually named) and William Hovell, who in 1824 along with at least six others, set of from Appin (near the present day Sydney suburb of Campbelltown) for the first successful quest to reach Melbourne. We also meet truckies; the bushrangers Ben Hall and Ned Kelly; the dog that shat on – or in – the tucker box; and the poets ‘Banjo’ Paterson and Henry Lawson. We attend a Catholic Mass in Tarcutta – officially the halfway point between Sydney and Melbourne – where apart from the priest and two parishoners, the only other people in attendance are the author of Bypass and his companion Jenny, who has by this time joined him on his ride to Melbourne.

We visit almost every country town along the route of the Hume Highway, and learn something about each of them. Towns like Goulburn, famous for the Big Merino and Goulburn Jail (where Ivan Milat is currently serving seven life sentences). We visit Holbrook and learn why the outer shell of the Oberon Class submarine HMAS Otway now sits in a public park in the middle of town. In Chiltern we pass by the childhood home of the Australian writer Henry Handel Richardson, and learn that Henry’s real name was Ethel Florence. We learn too, that like other female writers have done throughout history, Ethel wrote under a male nom de plume because at the time it was felt that women didn’t have what it took to be great writers. And we also visit the town of Yass, and drop by the Liberty Café for a meal before continuing on our journey.

Now, I have to confess this section of the book took me completely by surprise, and was one of the great unexpected pleasures I got out of Bypass. Let me explain why.

Some years ago, I was returning to Adelaide from Australia’s national capital, Canberra, and on a whim decided to pass through the town of Yass, which is some 60 kilometres or so from Canberra. Because I had been on the road less than an hour, and because I could see no reason to stop in Yass, I simply left the Hume Highway, drove into town and up along Yass’s main street, while all the time looking left and right taking a mental snapshot of the landscape. I then headed back out onto the Hume and continued on my way.

It may seem such an odd thing to do, but then I am prone to do odd things on no more than a whim, and this was one of those occasions. The reason I write about it now is that as I drove up Comur Street, Yass’s main throughfare, my gaze fell on a small dining establishment called the Liberty Café.

At this point I should mention that apart from putting this blog together, one of the other ‘strings’ I’ve added to my ‘bow’ is songwriting. So within minutes of passing through Yass I began writing a song called The Liberty Café*. This song subsequently appeared on my second album American Dream, and remains one of my favourite songs. Never the less, I had always regreted not stopping in at the café as I drove through town. I’m pleased to say I made amends for that lapse earlier this year, when in April, I again drove to Sydney, and this time I did stop at the Liberty Café for a meal break. In fact, I stopped there for a second time on my way back to Adelaide. So, as I say, it was a delightful surprise to read about the Café in Bypass, and know that of all the restaurants and cafés in Yass, Michael McGirr had also been drawn to the Liberty.

Across its many short chapters, Bypass also introduces us to some of the thousands of bumper stickers that adorn the rear ends of many Australian vehicles. In fact, McGirr uses stickers as chapter headings to introduce us to every aspect of his journey. Thus, the bumper sticker THE OLDER I GET THE BETTER I WAS, allows him to explain some of his own personal story and the reasons for his decision to ride the Hume Highway. In the chapter THE GODDESS IS DANCING, McGirr introduces us to his riding partner Jenny, and in DEATH IS THE MANUFACTURER’S RECALL NOTICE, we pause to learn about some of the many roadside memorials that mark the sites of fatal road accidents that line the Highway.

To conclude, Bypass is a book that ticks a lot of boxes in terms of my personal criteria for a good travelogue. The book is immensly readable, always entertaining and informative, often surprising, and constantly filled with odd facts and humourous anecdotes. These keep the story moving along smoothly and effortlessly – which can not always be said of Michael McGirr’s monumental bike ride.

I began this review by writing “like all good travelogue’s the ride itself is really just a frame to hang the real story around, which as the title suggests, is the story of the Hume Highway.” But it should also be said, that Bypass: The Story of a Road is not merely the story of one relatively short (by Australian standards) stretch of highway. It is also about the history of this country, and about the people who have helped build and shape it into the modern land it has now become.

UPDATE, MAY 2011: At the time I wrote this review Bypass...  was out of print. However, I'm delighted to report the book is back in print and available from Amazon.Com. Michael McGirr has also written Things You Get For Free which is also available from Amazon. To make the purchase of both books easy for you, I've added direct links for both books below.

Click here... Bypass: The Story of a Road to purchase Michael McGirr's book. Click the link below to purchase McGirr's Things You Get For Free.

* Click here to listen to the song, The Liberty Café...

Further Reading at Wikipedia

More about Ivan Milat…

More about Cliff Young…

More about the history of the Hume Highway…

In Review: Great Plains



 

Click here to order from Amazon.Com

~ “Away to the Great Plains of America, to that immense Western short-grass prairie now mostly plowed under! Away to the still-empty land beyond newsstands and malls and velvet restaurant ropes!”

So begins Great Plains, the 1989 examination of America’s heartland. That vast inner expanse of plains and prairies that range from Canada in the north down to the Texas panhandle in the south. Stretching some 2500 miles in length, and about 600 miles across at their widest point, the Great Plains encompass parts of the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and parts of the American states of Montana, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

Part history, part travelogue, part extended road trip, Great Plains has the grandeur and sweep of the frontier itself crammed into its concise 214 pages of main text – which is no mean feat, let me tell you.

By the time he wrote this book, Ian Frazier had driven some 25,000 miles on the plains – from Montana to Texas and back again. Twice. As well as many shorter distances. His meanderings took him from an abandoned anti-ballistic-missile system command centre in remote Montana, to the exact site of Bonny and Clyde’s automobile plunge into the Red River; from the location of Sitting Bull’s camp on the Grand River, to the site of Custer’s last stand on the Little Big Horn; from Fort Union in North Dakota, to Fort Stockton in Texas.

It is no accident that rivers feature so much in this book – even as peripheral ‘characters’. The Great Plains are at times so dry and barren that in the early years of exploration parts of them were known as the Great American Desert. It made sense for the early settlers – just like Native Americans – to build their forts and villages, their towns and cities along the banks of any river large enough to provide a source of life-giving water and food to the populace.

No accident too, that the history of conflict between Native American Indians and settlers crops up throughout Great Plains. Frazier manages to examine the slaughter of millions of bison, the betrayal and death of Crazy Horse, and meet and mix with numerous descendents of the great warriors of the past as he traverses this immense space.

All the great characters are here; ranchers and homesteaders, mountain men and fur trappers, outlaws and gangsters, cowboys and Indians, railroad barons, oil men, coal miners, and more. You get to meet the great and humble, the rich and poor, emigrant Germans and former Southern Black slaves, and the men and women who struggled for generations (and who still struggle today), to make some sort of living from the Great Plains.

Ian Frazier is clearly a man in love with the Great Plains, its history, and its immense cast of fabulous characters – both modern and ancient. As an introduction to this vast area of land and open space Great Plains is entertaining and informative, and filled with insight, obscure historical facts and references, and ultimately, immensely readable.

Finally, the book is well indexed, includes 16 pages of black and white photographs, and has almost 70 pages of extensive notes to supplement the main text. Highly recommended.

“This is a brilliant, funny, and altogether perfect book, soaked in research and then aired out on the open plains to evaporate the excess, leaving this modern masterpiece. It makes me want to get in a truck and drive straight out to North Dakota and look at the prairie.” —Garrison Keillor

Click here to purchase Great Plains via Amazon.Com...

Great Plains by Ian Frazier (First published: 1989, Penguin Books)

Now available in Picador (May 4, 2001) . ISBN-10: 0312278500

Also by Ian Frazier is the book On the Rez, billed by Amazon.Com as “…a history of the Oglala nation that spotlights our paleface population in some of its most shameful, backstabbing moments, as well as a quick tour through Indian America. Much of On the Rez revolves around Le War Lance, whom Frazier first met in Great Plains.”

Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (May 4, 2001). ISBN-10: 0312278594

NOTE: scroll through the Reading List box on the left to purchase On The Rez directly from Amazon.Com. You can also click on the In Review tag below to view other book reviews on this site.